Ariston

Neapolitan suiting with colour and nerve

Ariston has made cloth in Naples since 1920. Ferdinando Imparato founded the house, and his family still runs it, four generations on. Where the Biella mills tend toward restraint, Ariston is comfortable with colour, pattern and open weaves that suit warm weather and warmer personalities.

The book is not small. The collection runs to more than 500 fabrics across wool, mohair, silk, cashmere, cotton and linen, all of it woven in Italy, and it is rebuilt twice a year. That pace tells you what the house is for: cloth with a current idea in it, not a reprint of the archive.

For Australian clients the logic is simple. Naples dresses for heat, and so do we. An open weave Ariston jacket moves air in a way a dense northern worsted never will, and the colour range gives a commission somewhere to go beyond navy and grey.

The Rue Meynadier Burgundy Suit in our range is cut from Ariston cloth. It shows what the house does well: a strong idea, executed with enough discipline that you can wear it to work.